The season-long theme of inconsistency continued for Rick Stansbury’s basketball team Wednesday night.
After beating Ole Miss on Saturday, the Bulldogs (14-13, 6-7 SEC) dropped an 84-82 contest to LSU, who had lost 10 straight games before facing MSU. That loss, coupled with an Arkansas upset against Kentucky, leaves the Bulldogs tied with the Razorbacks for second place in the SEC West and a crucial first round bye in next month’s SEC Tournament.
State will face Arkansas on March 2 in Fayetteville in a game that could decide who gets that bye. Senior guard Riley Benock, who had three points and two assists in the loss to LSU, said the Bulldogs will look to rebound quickly from the LSU loss.
“It’s tough for us right now, but we’re still in control of our own destiny with Tennessee starting off and the head-to-head with Arkansas,” Benock said.
Unfortunately for the Bulldogs, they may be missing freshman guard Jalen Steele in the final three games of the season. Steele went down with a knee injury and hobbled off the court in the second half of the LSU game.
Stansbury did not know the extent of the injury after the game but said, “It’s not good, whatever it is.” Steele underwent an MRI on Thursday.
The Bulldogs opened up an early lead against LSU with Dee Bost dishing out five assists in the first five minutes of the game. By the 11:42 mark of the first half, State was up 24-11.
However, LSU started to heat up from behind the arc after that point, and the Tigers took a 45-41 lead into halftime.
“We jumped on them early… From that point on, maybe we got relaxed some, lost the focus some,” Stansbury said.
LSU cooled off in the second half, but turnovers continued to plague the Bulldogs. Bost hit 3’s on back-to-back possessions to bring the game within one, 70-69, with 6:53 left in the game.
The Bulldogs stayed within a basket’s reach of the Tigers during the last stretch of the game. LSU’s Ralston Turner hit a free throw with five seconds left to give LSU an 84-82 lead.
Out of timeouts, MSU inbounded the ball and Bost was able to find Benock open for a long two-pointer that looked like it may go in but rimmed out at the buzzer.
“We had no timeouts, so it’s about as good a shot as you would hope to get in that situation,” Stansbury said.
Renardo Sidney led MSU with 24 points, while Ravern Johnson and Bost had 15 points apiece. With nine assists, Bost was one shy of a double-double.
LSU was led by 14 points from Storm Warren and 12 from Garrett Green. The 84 points LSU scored is 29 points above its scoring average in SEC games of 55.2 ppg.
The Bulldogs’ next game will be Saturday against Tennessee in Knoxville. The game is set for a 5 p.m. tip and will be televised on ESPN. Bost said the loss to LSU makes Saturday’s game even more important.
“It makes it a lot bigger,” Bost said. “Even though we lost this game, we still have to go play Saturday. Like I said before, we can’t leave the previous game on our shoulder.”
The Bulldogs suffered an embarrassing 75-59 loss to the Volunteers in last year’s regular season finale.
As Benock pointed out, the Bulldgos control their own destiny in the battle with Arkansas for second place in the West, while Alabama is cruising at the top spot with an 11-2 mark in league play.
Along with Saturday’s game against Tennessee and the matchup with Arkansas, State will host South Carolina on March 5 to end the regular season. The Razorbacks’ remaining games are road trips to Auburn and Ole Miss, with the MSU game sandwiched in between.
As the season winds down, each game begins to carry more importance, something that is not lost on Stansbury.
“Each game really gets magnified now, that’s for sure.”